Price of Desire

by Goodman, Jo

  Her kisses tasted like sweet, warm cocoa. She surrendered them as one drugged—slowly, thickly, with infinite care. He decided then that she could have cocoa at every meal if she liked, but that he would insist that it be served at breakfast.

  Olivia sensed the change in the shape of his mouth. She pushed at his shoulders so that he would raise his head. “You are smiling,” she whispered once she could see him clearly. “Why are you smiling?”

  “You cannot expect that I will enumerate all the reasons now.” He bent his head and touched his lips to hers again, then drew up and kissed the tip of her pared nose, between her eyebrows, and finally the center of her forehead. When he lifted his head and looked down at her, he saw she would not be moved. His smile actually deepened.

  “Oh, very well, you may have your secrets,” she said as though she hadn’t just been made breathless by the wicked curve of his lips. Her fingers threaded in his hair, tugged, and brought him to her mouth once again.

  Olivia hadn’t expected to want him. When he’d picked her up and carried her to his bed, she had thought of nothing save that she would be made to suffer his touch in the full light of day. It wasn’t until he placed his mouth over hers that she reconciled to the fact that there had been no suffering the night before and there would be none now. She was yet undecided if that were necessarily good.

  She’d been aware of his eyes on her while she ate. They often fell on her mouth, which made her think she had a crumb on her lips. That made her touch the tip of her tongue to the corner of her mouth, which had the effect of making his eyes narrow a fraction. Believing that her manners were not up to the standard he set for his table, she raised her serviette several times to remove the offending bit of toast and invariably came away with nothing on the linen. She’d run her tongue along her teeth then, thinking perhaps a bit of bacon was lodged between them. That had only made his eyes darken somewhat dangerously, and Olivia fully anticipated that she would be asked to remove herself. She used what was available to hide her mouth and raised her cup of hot cocoa and sipped it as delicately as she could from lips she pressed into a perfect bow.

  It was then that he looked as if he might come across the table at her.

  Of course he did, but not in the way she had imagined.

  Now she was under him, though not exactly, because he kept himself from trapping her with the whole of his body and took most of his weight on one hip, thigh, and elbow. He had done the same last night, she remembered, and she’d thought it had been considerate of him even then. As impossible as it seemed, she felt sheltered, not suffocated.

  Her fingers twisted in his hair. She was not certain what she might do with her hands that would please him, while he seemed to have no such reservations. His hands were very busy, had been since the moment he fell onto the bed, and everywhere he touched pleased her. She had not suspected it could be done.

  How had she not known of the spot just behind her earlobe that was so sensitive to touch that her skin pebbled? Or that brushing the inside of her upper lip could make her breath hitch? She had lived inside her skin for four and twenty years and knew less about what made her body thrum than Griffin had discovered in one night and a morning.

  She moaned softly, tried to bite it back, then moaned again when he bent to take her breast a second time. He’d actually grinned as he lowered his head, watching her all the while, well pleased it seemed as her body betrayed its need and rose in offering.

  He suckled her through the cotton shift, changing the texture of the fabric as it became wet and slightly more abrasive. Her breast swelled, the nipple hardened. He tugged on it with his lips, and she felt cords of pleasure being pulled between her thighs. He was changing the texture of her there as well; she was already something more than damp.

  Olivia tugged at his nightshirt, drawing it up at the shoulders. Curious about him, she walked her fingers down his back, then allowed them to glide sideways at his hip. The faint hollow intrigued her, but the taut curve of his buttocks was where her hand found a perfect fit. She heard him groan softly against her breast when she squeezed.

  She had no time to relish this small proof of her power to move him because he was engaged in new exploration. His interest in her breasts was all about diversion. His fingertips had found an opening between her knees and were now sliding purposefully along her inner thigh. She slammed her legs closed, trapping his hand, but it did not serve her in the least. He contented himself with teasing her other breast and in time she felt her thighs simply ease apart with no urging from him.

  She tensed again when his fingers reached most intimately between her legs, but that is where his foray stopped. He simply cupped her mons while his mouth released her nipple and moved upward, lingering at her neck, then her jaw, and finally coming to rest against her lips. He licked, parted them with his tongue, and drew a whimper from her as she felt heat stir in her belly.

  Another diversion, she discovered, because his fingers were suddenly inside her, probing, sliding. She tore her mouth away from his, gasping, and pushed at his shoulder, but only to give herself something to brace as her body lifted in a perfect arch.

  She thought she might actually scream as pleasure flung her upward, but she swallowed it along with the breath she was holding right up to the moment Griffin’s thumb found the hard kernel of flesh between her damp lips and rubbed. That was when she simply came out of herself.

  This was no prickly pleasure skimming the surface of her skin. What she felt began deep inside and radiated outward, spinning, sparking, turning what was a warm glow into heat and light of an intensity she had never known before, one she had not suspected existed.

  Watching her, feeling her shudder, knowing he had finally given her the fullness of pleasure she had been denied last night, Griffin delayed his own satisfaction in favor of enjoying hers. Her eyelids dropped to half-mast, her kiss-swollen lips parted, a flush rose from the neckline of her gown to steal over her complexion. She stared at him, though the look was more vague than pointed, her dark eyes not quite focused on any particular feature. He smiled, bringing her attention to his mouth, then he lowered his head slowly and kissed her at his leisure.

  When he drew back, their lips parted with a damp little sucking sound that made him chuckle but discomfited Olivia. He saw her distress and tempered his amusement, moving more to one side as her fingers worked somewhat nervously on rearranging the hem of her nightgown.

  “I find you are unexpectedly modest,” he said. “No matter. It is rather charming.”

  “It is not an affectation.”

  “I didn’t think it was. The affectation is when you pretend otherwise.” He tapped her lips with his forefinger when she would have objected. “It was not long ago that I asked you if you were a whore. You didn’t blink or blush then. In fact, I recall precisely what you said. You—”

  Olivia talked around the finger that was still lightly pressed to her lips. “I said I had given you enough reason to think it. Really, can I depend on you to echo our every conversation?”

  “When it’s pertinent, yes.” He removed his forefinger to tap the tip of her nose.

  She brushed his hand aside. “It is annoying, you know, to have to reflect upon one’s words at a moment of your choosing.”

  “Quite possibly true, but there you have it. So why is it so important to you to pretend one thing when you are altogether something else?”

  “Why does anyone?”

  “I am not asking about anyone. I want to know why you do it.”

  She shrugged, looked away. “Fear, I imagine.”

  He considered that. “What are you afraid of?”

  “You cannot expect I will answer that.”

  “I can, but I won’t insist.”

  “You wouldn’t answer it.”

  “I might.”

  Olivia took the bait he dangled and dared to ask the same question he’d put to her. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Why you, of course, but I me
an to overcome it.”

  What he did, Olivia realized when she could breathe evenly again, was overcome her.

  The faro table was crowded with punters, and for the first time, Olivia was truly at her ease facing them. She hadn’t realized how much anxiety she’d felt on every other occasion until she experienced the absence of it. Griffin, too, was less often at her side, though not by any means less attentive. He did not pass through her gaming room without taking surreptitious measure of the gentlemen surrounding her table and judging their potential threat to her.

  The arrival of a half dozen students not long after midnight caused her some concern, but when their manner toward her hovered between respect and reverence she comprehended that Griffin had taken them in hand before they ever reached her table. She hardly knew whether to be offended or grateful for his interference and concluded that she was a bit of both.

  “I would have dealt with them, you know,” she told him after Mason had been sent in to spell her at the table.

  Griffin slipped his arm in hers and led her toward the unoccupied stairs leading up to their private rooms. It was quieter here, just off the hallway where patrons mingled, drank, and laughed until they settled on another game of chance. At a halfway point, he drew her down on the step so they were neatly tucked between the wall and the banister.

  “I prefer you only deal with the cards,” he said, releasing her so that he might rest his elbows on the stair behind him. He stretched his legs casually at an incline and glanced sideways at her, giving her benefit of a charmingly sheepish grin. “If you’ll forgive the wordplay.”

  “I suppose it is your experience to be forgiven all manner of things. It is your smile that puts others at a disadvantage.”

  “Really? And I’d so hoped it was my wit and the soundness of my arguments.”

  “Let us say you are not altogether foolish.”

  His grin actually deepened. “Pray, you must stop thinking so highly of me, else I am bound to disappoint you.”

  Olivia had an urge to poke him with her elbow. She restrained herself, but only just. “What nonsense you speak. What are we doing here?”

  “Stealing a moment for ourselves.”

  “Oh.” Olivia thought he might kiss her, and she wondered if she wanted him to, but he remained exactly as he was. She worried her bottom lip, trying to unravel his meaning as if he’d spoken in code. Did he expect that she would kiss him? “What does one do with a stolen moment?”

  “Sometimes nothing at all.”

  She approved of that. To mimic his posture, as it seemed pertinent to doing nothing at all, Olivia set her elbows behind her and reclined at an angle parallel to Griffin’s. “It’s a fine idea.”

  “A fishing pole and a swiftly running stream would improve it.”

  She nodded, though she wasn’t as convinced. “Do you have many opportunities to fish?”

  “I did. Not so often now.”

  She waited, content with his silence, sensing that he might be moved to reflect if she did not speak too soon.

  “The park at Wright Hall has such a stream. The water is clear and cool, and runs so quickly there is always a pleasant roar in one’s ears. Sunlight slips through the trees overhead and turns every spray into a translucent rainbow and every droplet into a diamond. The trout leap like acrobats and tease like coquettes. The most experienced anglers are patient and appreciate the performance. Some find it spiritual.”

  “Did you?”

  “There were times, yes.”

  “And now you are in London.”

  “I am.”

  This time her silence did not prompt him to speak. “I have never fished,” she said. “Although I like smoked trout well enough, but perhaps that is not spiritual.”

  “It can be.” He winked at her. “It is all in the preparation.”

  Olivia’s smile was rather winsome. “I think I will try fishing someday.”

  “Then you will want to know that using feathers from a lady’s bonnet to make your own flies is ill-advised.”

  “I imagine it depends on the lady’s affection for the bonnet. Did it belong to one of your sisters?”

  “My mother, and she had, in my opinion, an unnatural attachment to the thing.”

  “By ‘an unnatural attachment,’ I take it to mean she was actually wearing the bonnet when you plucked the feathers.”

  “You are clearly too clever for your own good.” He rose to his feet, then took her hand in his and helped her up. He kissed her once, briefly, warmly, and released her before it became something more. With no parting word, he tripped lightly down the steps and turned the corner into the hall.

  Olivia pressed the back of her fingers to her lips and stared after him. Not so very clever, she thought, not when she hadn’t the least notion of how to maintain her balance in his presence.

  She slept alone that night and for a full sennight after that. It occurred to her to return to his room without invitation, but she remained in her own because except for the occasional kiss at oddly chosen moments, Griffin Wright-Jones hardly seemed to know she was still under his roof.

  He was a curiosity. Olivia found herself studying him, rather more intrigued that he had set her from him since their night of intimacy than simply relieved by it. In her presence he often seemed mildly distracted so that she was never quite certain he was listening. It emboldened her at times, and she tested him, allowing small pieces of herself to drop like crumbs to see if he would sweep them up. He didn’t. Such things as she told him were never commented upon; indeed, he often chose some other conversational thread to pull and let such bits as she gave him simply lie there.

  In spite of Olivia approaching him several times in regard to his requirements, he had never shared them. Relying on trial and error and her own sense of what would be helpful, she became more involved in the nightly activities of the hell. She examined the cards for wear and recommended when decks should be discarded. She collected fallen chips and coins and passed them on to Beetle and Wick, who became her devotees because of it. When she asked Mason if she might propose some changes to the distribution of liquor and wine, he suffered her suggestions without comment, but implemented the whole of it the next evening.

  They all came to her after that. It was as flattering as it was unexpected, although the part of her that retained a survivor’s skepticism suspected Griffin’s encouragement, if not outright manipulation of his staff.

  While she had no access to the financial ledgers, she never doubted that Griffin was scrupulously fair in his dealings with her. It required little effort on her part to estimate her table’s winnings and calculate her share based on the percentage they’d agreed upon. She was never wrong by more than a few pounds as Griffin’s more detailed calculations proved night after night.

  He’d wanted to know how she was able to do it, but she had no explanation for it, nor any explanation for how she kept an account of the cards she’d dealt. Griffin had pointed out, quite correctly, that she could make even more money at faro as a punter rather than a dealer, but she had no interest in gaming as a participant.

  It had not escaped her notice that he did not make any wagers in his own establishment and as far as she was able to discover, made none anywhere else. The former, she understood. It was the latter that gave her pause, and when she asked him about it, his answer was a terse, “If I wish to give my money away, I will choose a charity.”

  In spite of the late hours she was keeping, she woke most mornings before many of the staff. It was her habit to go to the servants’ hall to carry back her breakfast tray, though either Beetle or Wick would have been pleased to deliver it. She would have preferred to eat with the staff, but comprehended very well they would have been made uncomfortable by her presence. It would have been that way whether or not they knew she’d been a visitor to their employer’s bed. They simply accorded her a certain respect because of how they perceived her station relative to their own.

  She often thought
she should direct them to inquire of her father. Sir Hadrien would have been delighted to inform them she was no better than she ought to be. He’d made certain of it.

  Olivia had removed her wig and was attending to her hair with punishing brushstrokes when she heard a staccato rap at her door. Her heartbeat tripped over itself as she set down the brush, and she felt a tightening in her chest. She could not imagine that it was anyone save Griffin expecting entry at this late hour, and above all things, she did not want it to be him.

  She picked up a damp flannel and began removing the rouge, powder, and beauty mark she had lightly applied before she went below stairs to meet patrons at the faro table. The rapping at the door began again, this time a bit more insistently. She sighed. He would not be moved until she answered and perhaps not even then.

  Olivia put aside the flannel and carried the candlestick with her into the bedroom. “Who is it?” she asked.

  Griffin supposed it was a sensible enough question, but in his present mood it irritated him. “Breckenridge.”

  Olivia opened the door a few inches. “My lord?”

  He scowled at her. “Will you not invite me in?”

  “I’d rather not, unless you insist, then of course you may come in.” She leaned into the opening and sniffed. “Are you foxed?”

  He fiddled with the intricate knot of his cravat and impatiently removed it. “Fletcher was foxed. I was his victim.” Dangling the offending article of clothing between his thumb and forefinger, he took a step back and indicated she should join him in the hall.

  Olivia was on firmer footing where she was, but she did not want him to know that. She slipped out, holding the candlestick in front of her. “What is it?”

  “I cannot find my error.”

  “I beg your pardon.”